Before the Kids and Mortgage: The biggest risks and rewards of embarking on a trip of a lifetime

Would you go on a year-long trip if you didn’t know where you were going?

Everyone around us told us that it’s crazy. Lots of people said that’s scary.

Unlike many people around us, Odelia and I didn’t think it was dangerous to go.

We only thought about the adventure of buying a one-way ticket to India without any plans whatsoever, save only for a vague plan to “travel the world.”  It all started with a dream.

We didn’t plan where we were going to be or how long we would stay in each place. Choosing to live in the moment, we figured it all out as we went along.

The basic assumptions for the trip were simple:

1. We will travel for one year, without working a single day, until all our money is going to run out.
2. We will stay in places that we like for longer times and move on only when we feel like it.
3. Our goal was to meet new people on a deeper level, by staying longer, showing respect, and helping them whenever we could.

So, what was the biggest risk? 

Before the trip, we didn’t consider all the risks with this decision in a logical way.  It was more of an intuitive feeling that this is the time to embark on a trip of a lifetime, the hell with the consequences or risks.

And what was the biggest reward?

We didn’t think about what we were going to get out of it before we traveled.

It turns out that we enjoyed the interaction with the colorful people we met, the most.

The trip and all the interesting characters we met along our journey are what inspired me to write Before the Kids and Mortgage.

Here’s the story of how we met our Belgian friend Freddie.

We were on an adventurous rafting trip in the Kali Gandaki river in Nepal, at the time of the Monsoon.  The river was wild and dangerous, getting to level 5 (the most dangerous rating classification for river rafting).

My (now) wife Odelia is afraid of water and is a poor swimmer.  I convinced her to go on this adventure, assuring her that I would “save her” in case something happens. And back then, we were just dating!

We chose a Nepalese company to guide us.  Unbeknownst to us, their rafts were full of holes, there was no safety gear, and our “guide” was a 15-year-old teenager.  In the first big rapid, a traveler from Belgium named Freddie flew out of the raft into the freezing water.

By the time we got to Freddie, he stopped talking English and spoke only French (probably from the shock!).

Fast forward. We stayed in touch with our friend Freddie. And he was the guest of honor at our wedding in Tel Aviv.

Read about all the places we visited and the amazing people we met in my book Before the Kids and Mortgage, available here on Amazon.

Let me know if you get the book and what you think, contact me here…and please share a story with me of when you took a leap of faith and how it all turned out.